I'd be careful before I'd fall in love with Sammy all over again. I think he's bat is still way slow. He can hit a mistake, but I can't see him remaining productive later in the season. I misread that, I thought it said, "Sosa makes history in Rangers loo's". I was imagining an enormous log. If that's not in the running for comment of the year then I want off the committee.

I'm sorry, Sammy. I think I ate your chocolate squirrel. It's probably obvious that Sosa's accomplishment in this case is a pretty dubious honor, since it has more to do with the era in which he played -- one that has seen many teams attempt to drum up renewed excitement by building new ballparks, the adoption of interleague play, and two periods of league expansion and a franchise move. And it helps that he has played in both leagues. You have to hit some homers to get to 44 ballparks, no doubt, but there aren't all that many players who had the opportunity. It's a curiosity, but not a fantastic achievement.

Ladies and gentlemen, luther has also made history today: nine lines, with only seven punctuation marks of any kind (and two of those were the periods in '.300' and 'AVg.'). It's only April, but he's already in midseason form.

I didn't check, but did Sammy hit a home run against the Expos when they were playing home games in San Juan? How about Oakland when they played the start of one season out of Las Vegas? I guess it's not really the number of parks he hit them in, but the Percentage of Available Parks Homered In (PAPHI) that matters. Playing in a time of interleague play gives Sosa a distinct advantage over someone like Babe Ruth (who only played in NL parks during the World Series). His PAPHI score would probably be in the .650 range. Also, does it take into account Home Run Derby homers during All-Star Game festivities?

Grum, you hit the nail on the head. Both interleague play and the availability of resources to build new ballparks has made this something that can't be compared to previous eras. I am a fan of the PAPHI stat and have to look into that.

Surely the PAPHI for almost any pre-expansion player with more than 50-60 career HRs is going to be 100%? Why? How often did the Chicago Cubs play the New York Yankees (and in Yankee Stadium) before interleague play?

You guys can dis Sammy with faint praise to your heart's content but the fact remains; He is one of the greatest hitters of our time and a helluva likable guy to boot,more than can be said about most of his contemporarie s.

"Playing in a time of interleague play gives Sosa a distinct advantage over someone like Babe Ruth (who only played in NL parks during the World Series). His PAPHI score would probably be in the .650 range." Babe hit six homers while playing for the Boston Braves in his final season.

grum: I guess I assumed that by 'available' you meant 'that they had actually played games in'; it seems unfair (uninteresting?) to penalize someone for not hitting a homerun in a park that they never had an at-bat in. (And I'm begining to think that luther70 is not a person but an art display, or an experiment.)